Your Pickens County

COUNTY — SDPC Director of Building Programs Bob Folkman said he is surprised and disappointed by the findings of the LLR investigation into undocumented workers at various school sites throughout Pickens County.
“I was led to believe that the findings of LLR were not that substantial,” said Folkman.
The SC Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR) Office of Immigrant Worker Compliance issued a report on August 27 following investigations of the SDPC school construction sites throughout Pickens County that began in November 2009. According to their investigation, all but five subcontractors were found to be in compliance, and those five had a total of 35 illegal aliens employed.
Margaret Thompson, former Clemson city councilwoman and outspoken critic of construction companies who hire illegal workers, says she is not surprised by LLR’s findings at all.
“I’m surprised there is not more than that,” she said.
“These are serious violations,” said Dr. Henry Hunt, school district superintendent. “We have continually stressed to our general contractors that the district expects, and our contracts require, general contractors and all subcontractors to follow all laws and regulations in constructing our schools. We will be consulting with our attorneys to determine appropriate action.”
Thompson said she believes that Hunt has done a great job at working with LLR throughout the investigation.
However, she also commented that “a lot of local men have been turned away from jobs in Pickens County. The school district ought to be embarrassed. They have laid off teachers so they could hire illegals.”
According to LLR officials, the investigation will continue into SDPC building sites throughout the county, and the group anticipates that they will find additional undocumented workers.
In the meantime, Folkman says he and the district are awaiting advice from legal counsel about what they can and cannot do in response to those subcontractors who reportedly employed the 35 illegal workers.
The law requires that employers verify every new employee’s authorization to work in the United States with a hire date beginning July 1, 2009 (if the employer employs 100 or more workers) or July 1, 2010 (if the employer employs less than 100 workers). An employer may not at any time, regardless of date of hire, employ a worker who is not authorized to work in the U.S.
In addition to completing and maintaining the federal employment eligibility verification form, more commonly known as the Form I-9, all South Carolina employers must within five business days after employing a new employee:
1. Verify the employee’s work authorization through the E-Verify federal work authorization program administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; or
2. Verify that the employee possesses a valid South Carolina driver’s license or identification card issued by the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles; is eligible to obtain a South Carolina driver’s license or identification card; or possesses a valid driver’s license or identification card from another state whose qualification requirements are as strict as those of the state of South Carolina.

By Nicole Daughhetee
Staff Reporter
EASLEY — Marine Corps League James Howe–Luke Cisson Detachment 1145 held its annual Awards Dinner at the Fatz Café in Easley on Saturday.
Marine Corps League members and their families were joined by Easley Mayor Larry Bagwell, Liberty Mayor Brian Deese, Pickens Mayor David Owens and Tim Morgan, Assistant Sherriff for Pickens County, at the ceremony.
Commandant Robert Krause was the recipient of the Four Chaplains Award presented to him by past honoree Commandant Sammy Little. This award is earned for selfless service and valor. It is intended to have the same weight and importance as the Medal of Honor.
In his opening remarks, Krause offered a special thanks to the Pickens County officials in attendance and an invitation for the municipality leaders to become more familiar with the services provided by the distinguished local non-profit organization. Krause and his fellow League members hope to work more closely with the Pickens County Community.
With a Federal Charter approved by Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 4, 1937, the Marine Corps League is the only federally chartered Marine Corps-related veterans’ organization in the U.S. The League has a nationwide membership of approximately 61,000 men and women, officers and enlisted, active duty, Reserve Marines, honorably discharged Marine Veterans and qualified Navy FMF Corpsmen.
Throughout Pickens County, the Marine Corps League James Howe–Luke Cisson Detachment 1145 has approximately 28 members, 14 of which are very active, according to Krause. The organization has been responsible for dedicating a granite marker at the Veterans Park in Liberty, as well as replacing unserviceable flags in the park. They perform military honors for deceased veterans in all branches of military service and raise funds for Wounded Warriors, Marines Helping Marines, and indigent Marines throughout Pickens County.
As men who have served their country, they also believe in the importance of giving back to the community. Marine Corps League James Howe–Luke Cisson Detachment 1145 works with area programs such as Toys for Tots, the Boy Scout, and they are currently working with the Upstate Young Marines to establish a marksmanship and firearm safety program.

PICKENS — The Pickens Police Department is currently investigating the theft of more than $30,000 worth of copper from the Pickens High School construction site located off U.S. 178 north of Pickens.
According to an incident report, police were called to the scene on Sunday after a foreman on the job discovered someone had broken into a construction office on site and taken keys that operated equipment located there.
It appeared that those responsible used those keys to operate a truck and a bobcat during the theft. The report said thieves removed hinges from a construction trailer and took copper pipe.
Also taken from the site were several half-inch, 60-foot rolls of what the report called “soft tempered” copper.
Police say they believe the bobcat may have been used to haul copper to the Gravely Road entrance gate. Police say they think a wheelbarrow found at the scene was used to carry the copper around the gate and to the road.
Pickens Police Chief Tommy Ellenburg said his department is currently investigating the case, and anyone with information about the robbery is asked to call the department at (864) 878-6366.
Ellenburg also told the Courier that information can be left anonymously on the department’s website at www.pickenspd.com.

PICKENS — A Pickens man accused of shooting his roommate to death last year was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the crime Monday.
Gary Clinton Mayfield, 51, of 894 Meece Mill Road, pleaded guilty Monday to the murder of 75-year-old Claude Julius Burrell during the opening day of trial.
Mayfield was charged on May 15, 2009, in the murder. According to arrest warrants issued by the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, Burrell was shot in the back of the head with a .22-caliber rifle. The murder weapon belonged to the victim, the warrant said.
Deputies said when the arrest was made they believed that around midnight on May 14, 2009, an argument escalated when Mayfield went into the victim’s bedroom, gathered the .22-caliber bolt action rifle, re-
turned to the living room and discharged the rifle, mortally wounding Burrell in the back of the head.
The warrant indicated that the offense occurred at the victim’s home, where the defendant had been residing.
The body was first discovered by the defendant’s son, who had also been living at the residence, according to reports.

By Jerry Alexander
Special for the Courier
During the early 1940s, sweating farmers were busily plowing their fields behind big ornery mules that insisted on pulling them along.
They were preparing the soil for planting on Pea Ridge in the shadow of Six Mile Mountain more than 65 years ago when came a sound unlike any made by the usual gaggle of hungry crows. It emitted from brown monsters soaring just overhead and was a considerably louder rumble. They flew extremely low right over these folks several times a week, and the mules were frightened and unruly in the beginning.
But in fact these loud, “flying monsters” were not monsters at all, but army brown-painted training bombers of the U.S. Army Air Corps. And their missions were extremely beneficial to the cause of freedom America was fiercely defending across the world back in those dark days of early 1943.
Flying and bombardier skills honed across middle Pickens County during that period would enable thousands of pilots to accurately drop bombs to destroy the enemy from the Nazi battlefields of France to the Japanese-infested Pacific isles of Saipan, New Guinea and Iwo Jima. General Jimmy Doolittle led the first American bombing mission over Tokyo in B-25 planes.
Smiling, boyish faces of young airmen flashed down from the aircraft windows. Some even waved when they could. They were not unlike the older teenagers plowing the fields below them who were vigorously waving back.
Many of these young flyers perhaps had plowed their own parents’ farmland only a few months before becoming airborne warriors. They alighted exhausted every night south of Greenville at what was then Donaldson Army Air Base, only to begin another mission somewhere over the state the next morning.
At this point, their mission was to perfect skills and training methods of modern aerial warfare. This meant constantly dropping practice bombs on targets floating in nearby Lake Issaqueena, Lake Greenwood and Lake Murray down near Columbia.
The new watery body called Lake Issaqueena had been created a few years before WWII as part of a local reclamation effort to halt the washing away of rich soil on eroding farms, causing falling crop production. The U.S. Government bought up a number of such farms west of Six Mile and began utilizing new conservation practices that would indeed stop such land erosion in its tracks.
But soon this area would take on a vastly more important mission — that of providing rural target areas and plenty of target practice for our young army flyers before they were sent to face the real enemy over the oceans. It would be a mission this land’s former owners would have highly approved of, especially those deceased patriots heading up the pioneering Lawrence family. They had stood the test of war.
A few years earlier, the Great Depression had descended on Pickens County like a black cloud of locusts. It resulted in millions of people losing their jobs and joining long unemployment lines across the nation. Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, public work projects bearing such initials as the WPA and the CCC became new household words across America. The correct names were Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps, but to most common people they were the WPA and CCC camps.
Pickens County was no exception. Thousands of people were without jobs from the Saluda to Keowee and from Eighteen Mile Creek to the top of Sassafrass Mountain. To ease the overall national job shortage, the federal government began to build what would become hundreds of public projects, including state parks across the country. Eighty years later, many are still viable and attract thousands of visitors every year.
Locally, Table Rock State Park is one example. The WPA and CCC leaders hired grown men and adult boys around 18 or 20 years old, putting them to work building roads, dams and terraces and just generally improving the environment, long before that term was even used locally. Their meager pay was welcome in a time when no jobs were available. It went home to feed hungry siblings and families.
In the Six Mile area, the meandering, sparkling creek of that name was dammed, forming a sizeable lake west of and just down behind Lawrence Chapel Church. It was in the woods four miles up the Keowee River from Clemson. Of course the lake eventually spilled over the dam, becoming Six Mile Creek again before it entered the Keowee about a half-mile later.
A nice park was created around Lake Issaqueena containing several large, rustic picnic shelters, exactly like those built across the state by other CCC workers. Several were on the backwaters of the lake and another near the dam. Even a big bathhouse was built for swimmers daily visiting the new lake, at the site of the old Lawrence farm home on the west side of the creek.
Much of this land had been purchased from the well-known Lawrence and Ramsey families as well as other local farmers. The family patriarch, Lt. Benjamin Lawrence, Revolutionary War soldier and scout, originally owned large land holdings up the Keowee River.
His body rests today deep in the middle of his forest, tenderly embraced by decades of soft, leafy mulch sprinkled daily by rays of dancing sunshine. Sifting silently through the tree canopy above, the light creates a soft, colorful fresco of dawn-spotted colors carpeting the forested floor. He was highly acclaimed for his steel nerve as a scout for the American Patriot Army, finding himself in grave danger numerous times but always successfully finishing his mission. A grandson, James W. Lawrence, “Uncle Jimmy” (1832-1922) as he was called, likewise served bravely during the fierceness of Civil War battles as a member of Co. E of Orr’s Rifles.
This Lawrence farm on Six Mile Creek was his father Elisha’s homeplace before Jimmy owned it, then the government purchased and converted the area into Lake Issaqueena’s new park. Strangely enough, this area now sits quietly in Clemson Forest, having been made part of Clemson University’s extensive land holdings following WWII. A few horseback riders can often be seen here. Park hours are posted at the gate.
The name Issaqueena is an Indian name given a local legendary maiden. The sturdy picnic shelters built many decades ago by our own CCC boys are empty and forlorn for the most part now, while other parks built at the same time literally flourish with fun-seeking crowds, such as Oconee State Park near Mountain Rest.
The missiles aimed at Lake Issaqueena targets were normally filled with about 100 pounds of salty sand from the coast to simulate as closely as possible actual bombs used in combat. Each apparatus also carried a small shotgun shell-denoting device that would explode on contact to allow pilots to evaluate where it had hit. Smaller 20-pound aerial bombs were also used and they, too, carried a marker. Every day, like honeybees, the bombers kept flying overhead to the lake to drop their target missiles filled with salty sand.
As time went on this spilled salty sand from the bombs attracted deer populations in the area. The animals would dig the dirt out from around rusting and damaged bombshells to access the salt, according to James Whitfield, who lived nearby on Keowee River in 1964. Deer still populate the Lake Issaqueena area of the Clemson Forest in substantial numbers.
Various log bunkers, mostly buried in the soil, protected workers who repaired the floating targets between bomb runs, Whitfield said. During the war, the crews resided in the vacant Back Lawrence home near Keowee River on the old Seneca Road, when they were not on duty, he said. Whitfield showed visitors various rusted hulking bombs sticking out of road banks near the lake.
As the planes sometimes actually released their bombs a good distance from the target, the missiles many times might overshoot their intended spot and would become embedded farther up on the wooded hillside beyond the lake. Thousands of practice bombs were dropped during the war years. Once, in the 1950s, when Issaqueena Lake was lowered for repair work, the lake bottom was exposed and the entire array of rusting bomb remains sticking up from the dry lake bottom appeared at first glance to be a sea of tree stumps. During practice runs, the area was off limits to the public.
But life must always go on. And in the midst of “Victory Gardens” and books of ration stamps for gasoline and auto tires, the ongoing tumult and confusion called WWII, not to mention scarce sugar supplies for banana puddings on Sundays, Pickens County farmers kept right on dutifully tilling their land. They quickly grew accustomed to the daily flights from Donaldson Army Air Base. Some days the pilots’ targets would be Issaqueena and the next day maybe it would be Lake Murray near Columbia or the even smaller, closer Lake Greenwood. Substantial numbers of planes and crews were in the air most every day, dropping bombs somewhere. Upon completing their training, the crews would head for the war front. New ones would attack Issaqueena’s training targets with zeal.
Being young and full of flowering manhood, the flight crews preferred training over Lake Murray most of all because of its level terrain, not to mention its numerous beaches filled with pretty girls clad in bathing suits waving to them in return. The pilots would flirt with the girls by “wiggling their plane’s wings,” one spectator recalled.
One of the many planes participating in the training exercises crashed into Lake Murray. Luckily the pilots were not killed in the accident. This B-25 aircraft lay inundated by the water for some 60 years before being pulled from its dark depths. There were various other type of planes, including P-38s, used in training exercises at Issaqueena besides B-25s, according to longtime area resident, 94-year-old Bill Holder of Old Seneca Road.
Actually, for many years this route was called “The Bombing Range Road.” At one time, many years ago a dirt road from the early Jimmy Lawrence farm ran down the east side of Keowee River all the way to the Calhoun Community at Clemson, says the elderly Holder. He lived closer to Issaqueena Lake in the early years of his life and now resides just up the road a couple or three miles closer to Six Mile. He once worked at Newry Mill during the war and had to drive through the “Bombing Range” to get to his job.
Bill can recall and tell of some harrowing events of those days as the metal missiles whizzed overhead. Bill also clearly remembers the awful Issaqueena bomber crash that claimed the lives of two flyers. The plane, making its run, failed to clear some trees and crashed.
Over the years, local citizens seeking war souvenirs have salvaged numerous old bombshells dropped on Issaqueena. Bill Holder was no exception. He came into possession of two perfectly preserved bombs. They had been dropped from a plane but had fallen into some vines at a shallow angle and did not explode. They were not damaged at all. So Bill, a well-known electrician across Pickens County, managed to disarm them and convert both into yard lights. Now they have stood at the entrance to his home for about 65 years.
At 94 years of age, he has an exceptional memory and knows everybody and every twist in the roads around that part of the county. And everyone knows him, it seems. He and his wife recently celebrated 70 years of marriage. They were blessed with five sons and a daughter. Three sons have now passed away, he said.
Bill is looking forward to the upcoming gala celebration of Six Mile’s history and even plans to take a part in it. He is a strong supporter of Six Mile, saying, “If you ever come to Six Mile and stay for a month, you’ll never leave. People down here have got hearts.”